Two suicide car bombing attacks and a string of other assaults in and around Baghdad Thursday killed at least 14 people, police and army officials said.

A suicide car bomber rammed into an Iraqi army checkpoint south of Baghdad, killing five soldiers in Mahmoudiyah, about 20 miles south of the capital. Several other soldiers were injured, according to army Lt. Odai al-Zeiadi, cited by The AP.

A second Iraqi army checkpoint in the southern Baghdad suburb of Bueitha was also hit by a suicide car bomber, killing one soldier, al-Zeiadi said. Six soldiers were injured, he said.

Gunmen assassinated three members of the Qadisiyah provincial council as they were heading to an Internet cafe in the western neighborhood of Khadhra, said police 1st Lt. Mohammad Al-Hiyali.

In Baghdad's Shiite enclave of Sadr City, an employee of the Ministry of Trade was killed in a drive-by shooting, said police 1st Lt. Talib Naim said.

Explosives were thrown into the compound of a British security firm in the western Yarmouk neighborhood, killing one Iraqi guard and wounding two others, said police Maj. Falah Al-Mihamadawi.

Meanwhile, a roadside bomb targeting an Iraqi patrol detonated at dawn in Latifiyah, killing three and injuring three, said a Babil provincial police spokesman.

Later in the day, two Algerian diplomats, Ali Belaroussi and Azzedine Belkadi, were abducted in the Iraqi capital of Baghdad, the Algerian foreign ministry confirmed to <i>APS</i>. The abduction was announced by the Iraqi interior ministry. The Algerian authorities are following closely its developments.